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Murder of Tessa Majors article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
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![]() | On 23 September 2021, it was proposed that this article be moved from Killing of Tessa Majors to Murder of Tessa Majors. The result of the discussion was moved. |
The result of the move request was: moved. consensus that WP:BLPCRIME allows this due to guilty plea accepted by judge ( closed by non-admin page mover) Elli ( talk | contribs) 15:23, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
Killing of Tessa Majors → Murder of Tessa Majors – Tessa Major's "killing" has been reported as a murder in every outlet, local and national, that has reported on the matter. Previously, arguments claiming to sound in BLPCRIME argued that reliable sources were wrong to use the term "murder," and therefore we should not utilize reliable sources and instead defer to "courts of law." These misgivings were unreasonable in that they were wrong as a matter of Wikipedia policy, and wrong as a matter of common sense. It is not the place of Wikipedia editors to second-guess reliable sources. Regardless, even these misguided legalistic objections should be satisfied, given that individuals have now pleaded guilty to her "murder." There is no purpose in maintaining the "Killing" title any longer. Consistent with other articles covering high-profile murders, a move is in order here.... Wikieditor19920 ( talk) 10:30, 23 September 2021 (UTC) Wikieditor19920 ( talk) 10:30, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
Put simply, one of the accused has pleaded guilty to murder. A court has accepted their plea. Calls for a "conviction" misunderstand the legal process. This is the legal conclusion of the case. Wikieditor19920 ( talk) 23:28, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
- The "wait until a conviction is secured" seems to be what a lot of editors are harping on.
- However, a
guilty plea to murder has already been secured. One of the accused pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree robbery.
The Times reported In a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday, Judge Robert Mandelbaum asked Mr. Lewis if he was in fact guilty.
The teenager paused, then said yes.
- Another participant pleaded guilty to robbery. Another pleaded "not guilty." There were three accused. - The vast, vast majority of cases do not go to trial. It is unsurprising that a plea deal was secured here.
- Whether or not the final participant either pleads guilty or goes to trial is irrelevant for the purposes of this article. The fact that a judge has accepted a murder plea on this matter and an admission of guilt -- from a minor, no less -- satisfies the BLP requirement as to this particular incident. The courts recognized Ms. Majors' death as a murder, as have reliable sources.
- It is not a comment on the guilt or innocence of the remaining parties to describe what occurred. The matter of fact to be disputed will likely be their level of participation -- not what occurred, which is a settled matter in court and in reliable sources.
- "Wait" is often a reasonable proposition, but should be accompanied by some sort of idea of what we are waiting for. And the what should bear a reasonable relation to the proposal. For the reasons stated above, it's no longer reasonable or necessary to wait for any further developments. It will be important to note that the final suspect has not pleaded guilty, but the titling of the article is merely about the circumstances of Ms. Majors' death, not the guilt or innocence of all suspected parties. Wikieditor19920 ( talk) 18:20, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
There is apparently some dispute over the "pronouns" to use for Tessa Majors. The relevant policy is MOS:GENDERID.
MOS:GENDERID states:
Main biographical article on a person whose gender might be questioned
Give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what is most common in reliable sources. When a person's gender self-designation may come as a surprise to readers, explain it without overemphasis on first occurrence in an article.
Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns (for example "man/woman", "waiter/waitress", "chairman/chairwoman") that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification. This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise. Avoid confusing constructions (Jane Doe fathered a child) by rewriting (e.g., Jane Doe became a parent). Direct quotations may need to be handled as exceptions (in some cases adjusting the portion used may reduce apparent contradictions, and "[sic]" may be used where necessary). Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography § Changed names calls for mentioning the former name of a transgender person if they were notable under that name. In other respects, the MoS does not specify when and how to mention former names, or whether to give the former or current name first.
Several editors have suggested that we should use "They/Them" pronouns for Majors based on
this piece in NYMag, which included the line: Tess was tiny and feminine and among her peers had started to use they/them pronouns, although she didn’t insist on it.
. The entire article, however, refers to her with she/her pronouns.
Policy requires us to defer to the latest self-designation regarding gender pronouns. There is no other source for this designation other than sources that picked up this line from the NYMag piece. This is insufficient to show that Majors self-designated as "they/them." It says exactly the opposite; that the usage was only occasional. All of the sources spoken to who knew Majors are quoted referring to her as "she/her," including friends and family. A few blogs have picked up on this throwaway line and incorporated it into their writings on majors, but these aren't reliable sources. The standard here to confirm that "they/them" were Majors self-identified pronouns at the time of her death are not met. Further, I've seen some editors try to walk the fence here by simply removing any mention of pronouns and using "Majors" (sloppily, I might add, as most of the article still uses she/her). This isn't appropriate. Either it's "They/them," or it's not. The NYMag piece says the use of these pronouns was occasional and does not provide enough to show that they should be standardized here. Wikieditor19920 ( talk) 15:17, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Murder of Tessa Majors/Archive 3#Tess Majors' Preferred Name and Pronouns for an earlier detailed discussion of this same topic. WWGB ( talk) 05:12, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
"Teenagers." 2600:387:15:730:0:0:0:1 ( talk) 00:54, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Murder of Tessa Majors article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives:
1,
2,
3Auto-archiving period: 30 days
![]() |
![]() | This article was nominated for deletion on 17 February 2020. The result of the discussion was keep. |
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | On 23 September 2021, it was proposed that this article be moved from Killing of Tessa Majors to Murder of Tessa Majors. The result of the discussion was moved. |
The result of the move request was: moved. consensus that WP:BLPCRIME allows this due to guilty plea accepted by judge ( closed by non-admin page mover) Elli ( talk | contribs) 15:23, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
Killing of Tessa Majors → Murder of Tessa Majors – Tessa Major's "killing" has been reported as a murder in every outlet, local and national, that has reported on the matter. Previously, arguments claiming to sound in BLPCRIME argued that reliable sources were wrong to use the term "murder," and therefore we should not utilize reliable sources and instead defer to "courts of law." These misgivings were unreasonable in that they were wrong as a matter of Wikipedia policy, and wrong as a matter of common sense. It is not the place of Wikipedia editors to second-guess reliable sources. Regardless, even these misguided legalistic objections should be satisfied, given that individuals have now pleaded guilty to her "murder." There is no purpose in maintaining the "Killing" title any longer. Consistent with other articles covering high-profile murders, a move is in order here.... Wikieditor19920 ( talk) 10:30, 23 September 2021 (UTC) Wikieditor19920 ( talk) 10:30, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
Put simply, one of the accused has pleaded guilty to murder. A court has accepted their plea. Calls for a "conviction" misunderstand the legal process. This is the legal conclusion of the case. Wikieditor19920 ( talk) 23:28, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
- The "wait until a conviction is secured" seems to be what a lot of editors are harping on.
- However, a
guilty plea to murder has already been secured. One of the accused pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree robbery.
The Times reported In a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday, Judge Robert Mandelbaum asked Mr. Lewis if he was in fact guilty.
The teenager paused, then said yes.
- Another participant pleaded guilty to robbery. Another pleaded "not guilty." There were three accused. - The vast, vast majority of cases do not go to trial. It is unsurprising that a plea deal was secured here.
- Whether or not the final participant either pleads guilty or goes to trial is irrelevant for the purposes of this article. The fact that a judge has accepted a murder plea on this matter and an admission of guilt -- from a minor, no less -- satisfies the BLP requirement as to this particular incident. The courts recognized Ms. Majors' death as a murder, as have reliable sources.
- It is not a comment on the guilt or innocence of the remaining parties to describe what occurred. The matter of fact to be disputed will likely be their level of participation -- not what occurred, which is a settled matter in court and in reliable sources.
- "Wait" is often a reasonable proposition, but should be accompanied by some sort of idea of what we are waiting for. And the what should bear a reasonable relation to the proposal. For the reasons stated above, it's no longer reasonable or necessary to wait for any further developments. It will be important to note that the final suspect has not pleaded guilty, but the titling of the article is merely about the circumstances of Ms. Majors' death, not the guilt or innocence of all suspected parties. Wikieditor19920 ( talk) 18:20, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
There is apparently some dispute over the "pronouns" to use for Tessa Majors. The relevant policy is MOS:GENDERID.
MOS:GENDERID states:
Main biographical article on a person whose gender might be questioned
Give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what is most common in reliable sources. When a person's gender self-designation may come as a surprise to readers, explain it without overemphasis on first occurrence in an article.
Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns (for example "man/woman", "waiter/waitress", "chairman/chairwoman") that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification. This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise. Avoid confusing constructions (Jane Doe fathered a child) by rewriting (e.g., Jane Doe became a parent). Direct quotations may need to be handled as exceptions (in some cases adjusting the portion used may reduce apparent contradictions, and "[sic]" may be used where necessary). Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography § Changed names calls for mentioning the former name of a transgender person if they were notable under that name. In other respects, the MoS does not specify when and how to mention former names, or whether to give the former or current name first.
Several editors have suggested that we should use "They/Them" pronouns for Majors based on
this piece in NYMag, which included the line: Tess was tiny and feminine and among her peers had started to use they/them pronouns, although she didn’t insist on it.
. The entire article, however, refers to her with she/her pronouns.
Policy requires us to defer to the latest self-designation regarding gender pronouns. There is no other source for this designation other than sources that picked up this line from the NYMag piece. This is insufficient to show that Majors self-designated as "they/them." It says exactly the opposite; that the usage was only occasional. All of the sources spoken to who knew Majors are quoted referring to her as "she/her," including friends and family. A few blogs have picked up on this throwaway line and incorporated it into their writings on majors, but these aren't reliable sources. The standard here to confirm that "they/them" were Majors self-identified pronouns at the time of her death are not met. Further, I've seen some editors try to walk the fence here by simply removing any mention of pronouns and using "Majors" (sloppily, I might add, as most of the article still uses she/her). This isn't appropriate. Either it's "They/them," or it's not. The NYMag piece says the use of these pronouns was occasional and does not provide enough to show that they should be standardized here. Wikieditor19920 ( talk) 15:17, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Murder of Tessa Majors/Archive 3#Tess Majors' Preferred Name and Pronouns for an earlier detailed discussion of this same topic. WWGB ( talk) 05:12, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
"Teenagers." 2600:387:15:730:0:0:0:1 ( talk) 00:54, 2 June 2022 (UTC)